Reapers
by baby-kitsune9
Summary: Uzumaki Nara was once a part of a branch Anbu orginization called Reapers. However she forced the village to retire her and then was chased out by madmen seeking her demise. Years later she's back, the village falls to her power. Kakashi/Fem Naru
1. Chapter 1

Okay- I know what all of you are thinking. You see another story and either think 'oh god not another one' or ' yay! new reading material.'

Well this will be one of those times. I was requested to make a story for HICHIGOvsworld where Naru was no longer a part of the village, Kakashi was the new Leaf Bijuu- And the rest had something to do with a new rank of nins within the village that stand on par with the sanin known as Reapers. Basically they are a form of Anbu deployed for political assassinations and such. Things that many _normal_ nins wouldn't do.

In the history of the village there have only been _three_. Two died. And one was retired and driven from the village.

Now to protect the identity of those who become Reapers- No one but the Hokage is allowed to know their true name and skills. Anyone that tries to look at their files are taken out and killed.

This is going to be a really long, really complicated story but hopefully I'll be able to pull it off. It just means doing more work. So bear with me and enjoy the ride.

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**Reaper 001- Name, age and origins unknown. **

**Status; deceased.**

**While little is known about the first Reaper brought into Anbu, it is believed that he was among one of the most talented shinobi in histroy. **

**ooOoo**

**Reaper 002**

**Name- Sakumo Hatake**

**Origins- not much is known**

**Age- 40**

**Status; deceased. **

**Hatake Sakumo became mentally unstable after last mission and committed ritual suicide. **

**ooOoo**

**Reaper 003**

**Name- Uzumaki Nara**

**Origins- Bastard child of the Fourth Hokage and a noble woman.**

**Age- 7 upon acceptance into Anbu. **

**While little is known about the child in question, no one was desputing her skill and ability. However after only three years of service, Nara forced herself to be retired. ****Unhappy by the rebelous streak in the child- the village dyamios and lords handed down an execution order. **

**Nara was last seen standing among the corpses of men sent to kill her with only one survior. The Hokage himself. Sarutobi suffered severe almost life threatening wounds before being knocked out. **

**Current status; MIA. After so many years of searching, and finding nothing; she is believed to be dead. **

Sarutobi closed the file with a sense of finality as he leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes and sighed. Nara Uzumaki, huh? Wow, it had been a while since he'd last heard that name. Almost nine years since he'd last seen or heard of the child in question and while he understood her reasons for wanting to retire from the Reapers branch of Anbu.

She should have asked him for help. For protection. For..._something_. After all Konoha village didn't relinquish their weapons well.

And it hadn't helped matters when one of the village lords had blabbed to the civilians about who the latest Reaper was or what she held within her. Everything had happened so fast that Sarutobi was _surprised_ the village hadn't been destroyed.

There had been riots both from groups of shinobi and civilians calling out for the child's death.

He'd been forced to have everyone that knew the girl was a Reaper, tortured and killed- including the village lord that had started the whole thing. But it hadn't stopped the fifty villagers from being killed. Just like those things hadn't stopped Nara from escaping the village and attacking him when he tried to persuade her to return.

He'd had one of his arms severed above the elbow, suffered massive internal bleeding and had nearly died. The last thing he recalled before being rendered unconscious was Nara standing over him.

Her angelic little face spattered with drying blood, her normally lovely deep, deep blue violet eyes had taken on a demonic looking red with slitted pupils. Her shoulder length silvery blond hair had been tangled and matted with blood and other bodily fluids. _"Never again."_ She'd said in a deathly quiet tone that had sent chills down his spine.

Then the darkness had overwhelmed him and all he could remember was waking up in the hospital wondering to himself, _Never again what? _


	2. Chapter 2

Nara stepped out of the meeting with the Romani and was met by her closest friends. "What did they say?" A red head about ninteen years of age with pale aqua eyes and an Ai tattoo in vivid scarlet ink over his left eye, asked in a curious tone. Next to him, his two older siblings shifted nervously.

"They said that they understand our need to move on, but they would prefer that we didn't. They feel that it might endanger them and their way of life."

"They aren't wrong." Someone else, a young woman with cat like green eyes and mid back length ash blond hair, said from her place in the tree above the red head. Nara sighed and lifted her hands to massage her temples.

Yugito was right, of course.

The Romani was a very tight knit group who guarded their lives _and_ their secrets with lethal force if they deemed it necessary. It would only stand to reason that since they had taken Nara and her group in and adopted them as their own that they would feel that having them leave might somehow unhinge things. After all they were a dying people with dying traditions.

They needed as many people as they could get to help keep their traditions, laws, beliefs, exct. from dying out. That was why childless couples often kidnapped small children that had gotten seperated from their parents and adopted orphans like herself and her friends.

"So what will you do?" The red head asked.

Nara perked up for a second. "Well I think I've found a way to satisfy both my need to stop those people before the destroy some other hapless person's life, and bring in new people to continue the Romani traditions. It would mean taking a lot of people 'prisoner'- mainly woman and children. Many of the women would be married off as soon as possible. But it should be fine since the Romani aren't the type of people to abuse those weaker than themselves."

"And the shinobi?"

"We'll place a jutsu on them to restrict their movements and lay down some ground rules. Shinobi are good at taking orders, it's programed into their minds from an early age so I don't think they'll cause much trouble. But since there would be so many of them, Gaara, you will have to take a small group as your servants. Yugito, Killer Bee and several others will have too as well."

"I'm hating this plan of yours already." Gaara said in wry amusement as Nara paused in mid sentance and bristled a bit.

"I don't hear you coming up with anything!"

"That's because it isn't my home town." Gaara said with a smirk as Nara hissed at him like a cat. Yugito laughed and almost fell out of the tree as Nara shouted,

"You jerk! You could contribute more! After all it's the five tailed wolf we're after!"

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He sat at the bar with several bottles of sake scattered about, listening to little snippets of conversation when he picked up on some people in the booth behind him talking about Reapers and how cool their job must be.

He snorted and poured himself another drink, his movements graceful and fluid as he heard someone say. "Man I would give my left nut to have such a job."

He found his hand trembling slightly as anger welled up within him. _How dare they._ How dare morons like these assume that Reapers had a great job. It was all nothing but bullshit being spouted out by brainless children in desperate need of an ass kicking.

He slammed his sake bottle down on his table, his mood no longer mellow as he turned slightly in his seat to glare at the men. They were all Jounin rank or less, all of them young. _Oh I envy them that youthful stupidity. _

The jobs given to Reapers weren't fun. They weren't cool.

And though the job itself was highly respected- there were drawbacks. For starters, a Reapers average life span was under a week due to the high risks of capture, death and even suicide.

Upon becoming a Reaper the person holding the title and rank was given a weapon of choice, and sent to the dentist wher a cyanide tablet was placed into a hollowed out tooth with a cap on it. If the job ever became too much- The Reaper was encouraged to use the tablet.

The jobs that they took consisted mainly of assassination. Genocide and murder. If they were told to kill innocent people then they had to do it no matter how much they hated it. If they left anyone alive it could come back to bite them on the ass in a bad, bad way. But there was one specific thing- an aspect of the job that no one knew about.

The people chosen to be Reapers...were _all_ demon containers or had demon blood in them.

And now, he was next in line for the title and rank.

He took a shuttering breath and picked up his sake cup and quickly downed the liquid, ignoring the burning sensation in the pit of his stomach. He'd been drinking since early this morning when he'd been summoned by the Hokage and asked to take up the tittle of village Reaper.

No the person chosen for the title of Reaper should be pitied. Because there was no next week, next month, next year for them. No smiling family or lover to wave them off and wish them well.

There was nothing but an empty void that grew and grew until it consumed you.


	3. Chapter 3

The Romani elders gave Nara and her freinds one week to travel to the Leaf village, demolish it and liberate some of it's people and bring them back with them- or they would hire assassins to kill them. Frankly Nara thought they were being too overly cautious and paranoid about nothing.

But the elders didn't see it that way and so instead of arguing with them she accepted their terms. And then later on that night held a meeting with all of the Bijuu containers present in the camp. Assigning each of her personal guards and close friends a specific job to do while inside the village so that she could minimize the number of fatalities.

Temari and Kankuro would cause a huge distraction with the help of Killer Bee while Gaara and Yugito took care of the Anbu. Around the Hokage's tower as well as within it. Giving Nara the chance she would need to find the files on the five tailed wolf as well as his/her name, age, skill capabilities exct.

All the better to track and capture that person before he/she got killed trying to defend themself.

"How many people are we planning to bring back with us?" Killer Bee asked curiously, for once he didn't bother to try rapping. Especially when he knew that Nara was dead serious about planning things out and she'd jerk a knot in his tail if he disrupted her meeting.

"Three hundred. No more. No less."

"A hundred women, children and shinobi?"

"Yes. I want four groups of genin ranking nins. Chunin ranking nins. And Jounin and Special Jounin ranking nins. Twenty five for each division."

"But the Jounin and Special Jounin-"

"Will all count as one group. Five Special Jounin to go with twenty regular Jounin. Anymore than that would be a pain to deal with. You'll have to keep them all seperated from one another, and in a weakened state with chakra draining cuffs. They can keep one weapon on them. But it has to be small. After all we aren't terribly sure if anyone will attack such a large group."

"Bandits would. Espcially if they think they could steal some of the women, food and valubles." Garra said as he thought over Nara's plan. It wasn't exactly a bad one. And he could understand letting a shinobi keep a small weapon just in case they were attacked.

After all those people weren't built for captivity.

They might want to help defend their people. Or even themselves if it increased their chances of getting out of a fix, alive. But then again, they might try to attempt to save themselves too. Surely Nara knew that. Gaara thought as he looked at his gypsy princess. She lifted her head a fraction of an inch and tucked some stray strands of her nearly waist length silvery blond hair and looked at him.

The peircing turqouise of her eyes letting him know that she already knew what he was thinking. Ah so she was aware. Well then, he supposed that he didn't need to waste his time tweeking her plan since she was coming up with a solution herself.

"How many servants do you want us to take responsibility for?" Another one of the Bijuu containers asked curiously.

"Twenty each. A small group of women, children and men. Ranking doesn't matter as long as you can keep them in line." Nara said as she then mentioned several people in the village by name and explained their abilities.

One was Iruka Umino, chunin rank; school teacher. But in actuality he was a very formidable young man. Formerly the only chunin ranking Anbu within the village, he had been retired when it had become clear that though he was a very capable shinobi, he was more suited for the classroom than direct combat.

Another was called Uchiha Sauske. Nara's report on his capabilities was less than impressive due to the fact that his ego was so large he'd trip over it if he looked down at his feet.

The person mentioned after him was another supposed prodigy, Hyuga Hinata. Nara explained that while this person was timid and kind of unconfident in her abilities, she had much more potential than anyone realised and that she would take the girl under her wing personally. Which was surprising considering that she probably planned to take Umino and a few choice others under her wing as well.

The meeting continued long enough for Nara to hand out armor for her brothers and sisters to wear and told them to pack some of their more concealable weapons in scrolls and take along some civilian clothes so that the villagers would think they were mere street preformers.

Temari, Yugito and Nara would dance while Gaara and Killer Bee played some music for them while the others scoped out the village.


	4. Chapter 4

A week later-

Nara was sitting in the back of a covered wagon in her gypsy garb, a lavender purple two piece outfit with silver coins, bangle bracelets around her wrists and ankles. Her eyes staring into the woods just behind the wagon as she replayed the events of the last week in her mind.

The journey to the Leaf village had been a nightmare. Both _literally_ and _figuratively_.

The first day of their journey, they had lost one of their wagons to Killer Bee's reckless fire play around the time of the evening meal. The second day of their trip had ended with two nearly crippled Bijuu after a lively game of dice. By day three, Nara hadn't even bothered to get up out of her makeshift bed.

She had just absolutely _dreaded_ what was going to happen next.

Turns out that she had every reason to feel such dread. Gaara and Yugito had both gone into heat and had to be drugged to keep them from going nuts and mating with random people and inanimate objects. Although it had been sort of funny, infuriating, frazzling to come out of her wagon to the spectical of Gaara humping Kankuro's leg.

But for the most part it was just so that the rest of the group didn't have to worry that their friends would injure themselves or wind up raping someone unconsciously.

By day four- Nara had decided that she didn't want to continue with the journey and had tried to leave the group. Saying something about needing to be alone before she lost her mind. Day five resulted in food poisoning. Which made Nara think that the whole lot of them had been cursed to fail from the beginning.

That and someone needed to re teach Killer Bee what was acceptable to eat in the wild and what wasn't.

By day six, Nara had more or less given up on living. Seriously who was she kidding dragging this rag tag band of Bijuu into her former home village to destroy it? She'd be lucky if the group didn't self destruct within an hour...causing their capture, interrogation, and possibly even their deaths.

So naturally after everything that had happened she felt some doubts creeping in about the success rate of this particular mission. Kankuro ran by the wagon without his pants on, screaming and Nara reached up and pinched the bridge of her nose to stave off the headache she felt coming on as Yugito came barreling around the wagon after him sporting a pair of cream colored neko ears and a matching tail.

Oh right. She'd forgotten their sanity. That was also in question. "Someone please grab Yugito and put her back to sleep before someone sees her..." Nara called out as Kankuro ran for his sister's wagon hoping to escape the neko demon's clutches. Yagura, the three tailed Bijuu grabbed Yugito and delivered a quick chop to the back of her neck rendering her unconscious and handed her off to Utakata.

Whom promptly pulled her arms behind her back and bound her wrists then handed her off to Killer Bee who tossed her into the back of Temari's wagon causing Kankuro to come racing out of hiding-still without his pants- and Nara sighed and said in a dark tone. _"Would someone please get Kankuro some damned pants before we enter the village?"_

"Do we have too?" Han asked in an amused tone as he came up to her wagon from her blind side, his sudden stealthy appearance startling Nara slightly if the way she jumped was any indication at all.

"Yes. They may not allow us entrance to the village if we stand out too much." Nara said as she put a hand over her chest and tried to slow her heartbeat. Han smiled at her and patted her knee then said.

"Well I suppose that that is one way to look at things. I myself like to think that if Kankuro ran around the village a few times without any clothes on that not only would they pay us to leave, but they may also be so confused and distracted that we could do what we came to do without much of a fuss. After all, who in their right mind would fight with a lunitic?"

Nara grunted. _Yup their sanity should definately be questioned,_ Nara thought as she got an uneasy look on her face. She suddenly wished she was back with the Romani. At least when she was with them she didn't feel like quite so uneasy and unsure of herself.

Han patted her knee again and she looked up at him again and found him still looking amused as he said, "Try not to look so down princess. Yagura and I will take Gaara and Yugito's place as your guards until they are back on their feet again."

The bottom dropped out of her stomach and she felt a chill shoot down her spine and quickly excused herself to go lay down while she could since they would be in the village in just another hour or so.


	5. Chapter 5

Kittens!

Several months ago I entered a nation wide poetry contest and today I was informed that I was a finalist in the contest and that my poem would be published!

That's so cool.

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Nara was still resting when they passed through the village gates. Her unconscious mind was filled with what could only be a permontion about someone unknown. All she really got out of her dream was silver hair and wolf like mismatched eyes. Shining with a keen intelect, cunning and a healthy dose of ruthlessness.

But most of all the over all impression that she got from the premonition was when the faceless person turned and looked at her.

Her heart slammed against her ribs as her eyes met his. And for that small moment she got the strangest feeling that she knew him. Wait. Him?

Was she dreaming about a man? She wondered as she felt him move closer to her. Almost as if in this instance their minds were one and he was just as curious about her as she was about him. He leaned down a little bit at the waist so that they were eye to eye and stared at her for a moment before saying in a soft rumbling voice that made her shiver.

_"Got your scent."_

Then he was gone. And Nara woke up with a jolt feeling as if her breath had been knocked from her lungs and sat on her makeshift bed for a few moments trying to catch her breath when she felt the presence of one of her brothers next to her. "Princess?" It was Han, since he was one of the few that would go so far as to call her princess under any circumstances.

Much like Yugito called Gaara, Princeling, just to get a rise out of him. It was merely a term of affection that had been used once or twice to brige the invisible gap between herself and some of the others. She looked at Han as he knelt down and placed his hands on her slender shoulders, his expression concerned. "Princess are you well?"

"I-I'm fine Han." Nara stammered as she lifted a hand to rub at the space between her eyes where her head was suddenly hurting.

"Are you sure? You look pale." Han pointed out gently as she tiredly dropped her hand away from her head and sighed.

"Yes. I'm fine." Nara said again, this time she didn't stammer. She felt something odd was still off but couldn't quite put her finger on what it was until Han said.

"You know that it is alright if you do not feel well right now. Most Bijuu do not feel well after synchronizing with others."

Nara stopped fidgetting and looked at him again, her face completely bloodless now. "Synchronizing? What the hell does that mean?"

"It's a term used when two demon containers share thoughts or dreams. It's very rare. And most of the time it's done subconsciously. One mind seeks something or someone out and finds another searching as well. So they link and for a brief time they can share information about themselves or others. Among other things."

"W-What does it mean when the person you've synchronized with says, Got your scent?" Nara asked in a slightly shakey tone. Han gave her a wide eyed look for a moment then hummed and shrugged his shoulders.

"Dunno but it sounds ominous."

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Kakashi moved at a furious gait through his apartment, randomly grabbing his wallet, keys, and mask from several different places before slipping his shoes on then bringing his hands together to make the hand signs for the teleportation jutsu he'd picked up while in Anbu.

Once that was done he vanished and reappeared in a small puff of smoke somewhere down town in the village and started walking.

He didn't know who the hell that girl from his dream earlier was. All he knew was this odd incessant feeling that he had to find her ASAP. So it was a good thing that he had gotten close enough to her in his dream to pick up her 'scent'.

Though it wasn't a tangible thing. It had left him with the strong taste of oranges in his mouth upon waking. And while that wasn't much, to him it was enough to track her down and then some.


	6. Chapter 6

By the time they reached the center of the village Nara felt like she was about to have a panic attack. She could just feel the synchronization of her mind with the 'others' pulling at her. She could feel the dirt crunching under his feet as he walked- no! Wait. He didn't walk.

He _prowled_. Like a large animal, anxious and restless. Seeking something in the world around it as if it understood what it's mind was trying to tell it. The gait he used was definitely restless. Which was easy to read even from a distance. But their mind link also gave her different kinds of information too.

He was tall, perhaps six foot four or six foot five. Above average for a man of the leaf village by about a foot. So he would stand out in a crowd.

She figured from the way his foot falls fell, and from the imprint his feet left on the ground; that he must be at about one hundred and seventy pounds.

He was strong. But of course he'd have to be to synchronize minds with her and not be phased by the torrents of information that he might be getting from her. The second that thought occurred to her as she bolted up out of her bed screaming was that he could probably pick out little snippets of information about her too.

Her screaming starled Han who had taken up a protective position close to her bed in order to keep her calm because he knew how rattled she already was about being back in the village.

She screamed several times and hardly noticed the wagon come to an abrupt, lurching stop as another of her friends crawled into the back and grabbed her and shouted in her face. "Nara! Nara wake up!"

She felt the 'other' turn his head to the left as she screamed and suddenly stopped when she felt him narrow his eyes as he muttered her name as if he were curious about how it would sound coming from his lips as he changed direction and started running. His foot falls becoming heavier. More rapid as he ate up the distance between them.

_Oh god! Oh god! Oh god, he's coming! He's coming and I'm still sitting here- _Come to think of it why was she still sitting there? Shouldn't she be running or something right about now?

**_There's nowhere to run Nara. Whoever you are, wherever you are- I'll find_ you. **As soon as the thought slithered through her head Nara started hyperventilating. _Ohhh_, getting caught now would do nothing for her mission. The Romani would suffer. Her friends and family would suffer-

**_Mission? What mission?_ **The other mentally asked with an tone of keen interest.

_You mind your own business! _She mentally snapped back as she tried to focus on what Han and Temari (whom had just joined them in her wagon) were saying. It took four or five minutes and by the time she was finally able to focus enough to respond she realized that someone had just slapped her and she was surrounded by a sea of faces that blurred slightly as her eyes teared up.

**_Did someone just strike you?_ **The voice in her head asked with an audible bite to it.

_I said to mind your own business... _

**_At the moment you are my business. _**

Nara would have argued with him further but she was slapped again, this time hard enough to jolt her out of her own thoughts as she heard someone say in a panicked tone. "Oh shit! I think I hit her too hard!"

Another voice snarled. "Well no fucking duh. What was your first clue that you hit her too hard? The bruise forming on her face? Or the blood running down her chin?" Nara frowned a little bit and blinked her eyes as she took in the people around her and tried to understand why the world was a bit off kilter.

She felt a hand gently stroking her hair back from her pale cheek and blinked again as it hit her that someone was holding her semi upright, the arm around her middle squeezed a little bit then loosened as she gradually started to move around a little bit. "W-Who hit me?"

Everyone in the wagon, even the two bijuu in heat, pointed to Killer Bee who just scratched his cheek and tried to give her his most charming smile. Obviously trying to butter her up as Han helped her upright with Temari's help as she groaned and wiped away some of the blood before hissing. "Gaara! Yugito! Rape Killer Bee and teach him a lesson."

Someone chuckled and elbowed Killer Bee in the ribs and said in a sly tone. "Lucky dog."

"Lucky my ass!"

"Speaking of ass, Yugito and Gaara- make sure that you milk him dry of everything he's got." Nara said in an overly cheerful tone as the red head and the blonde attached themselves to her adopted brother while he whined and awkwardly carried the two out of the wagon as Han pressed something cool against her bruised cheek causing her to jerk slightly and recall that the other was on his way to her location.

"Sorry-"

"Don't worry about the bruising Han. I need to get out of here. Come with me." She said quickly, her anxiousness mounting more and more by the second.

Han and the others looked at her curiously yet no one said anything. They had known from the beginning how much being back in the village would affect her. Which was why Han gave a slight nod and stood up off of the bed and took one of her hands in his. "If my princess wishes to leave for a while then we will leave."


	7. Chapter 7

He felt her trying to put distance between them, and gave a grim smile under his cloth mask. He had no idea who the little chit was or where she had come from- But he was suddenly grateful for the distraction of her presence.

He had forgotten what it was like to be near another demon container. To feel a little less alone in the world, and at the moment he was sensing more than one container in the village. He was sensing several, the unknown female included.

And it made him feel..._happy_?

Content to be where he was despite how difficult his life had become since the Uzumaki child had been lost? He couldn't really place the feeling. All he knew was the _rightness_ of it.

Like a terrible weight had been lifted from his shoulders and broken down into pieces.

He reached out with his mind, trying to maintain the connection between himself and the spunky little female while picking details from her mind in a similar fashion to how she had done so with him.

He got the impression of an exotic beauty. Lithe, graceful when she wanted to be, if a touch accident prone. She was embarrassed easily, and blushed even more easily. Her voice had a velvety quality to it, raspy one moment and smooth and silky the next. She was an able fighter with a sound mind...

_Good-_ He thought as he felt her moving a little further away. Applying chakra to his feet, he sped up. His body weaving through the crowded streets before he finally got tired of having people in his way and leapt up onto one of the buildings and continued to track her from there.

He got nearly to the middle of the village before catching sight of two figures moving up ahead. _Ah-ha, found you! _He thought as he took note of the two figures ahead of him.

One was a male who probably stood about a foot or so lower than he did, his hair was mid back length and was a glossy blue black color. His clothing was strange- But then he wasn't the person that Kakashi was interested in so that was about as far as he got.

It was the slender body of the woman next to the man that drew his eyes.

He could see that she was wearing a lavender purple ankle length skirt with a silver colored belt with coins attached to it and a midriff shirt, her hair- the long _beautiful_ silvery blond color, shone almost a silvery white in the sun. There were silver bangles around her ankles and probably more around her wrists.

Was she a gypsy? He wondered as he closed in on her and her companion.

She must have sensed how close he was, because one moment he was staring at her back- which was almost within his reach- and the next... She turned her head and looked right at him and sqeaked. Squeaked!

The shocked sound reaching his ears, amusing him somewhat as she absently reached out and grabbed the arm of her companion and fairly shrieked, "Han he's right behind us!"

The unknown male glanced back at him, giving him a small glimpse of wide, surprised grey eyes before he scooped the woman up and grinned then took off like a shot across the rooftops.

Kakashi felt his jaw go slack for a moment as he stared in shock and disbelief. _Holy shit-_ He'd never seen anyone move that fast before. Like ever. Just who the hell was that guy?

**_I think the better question is why aren't you trying to catch up to them..._ **His inner demon said in amusement causing him to growl low in his throat, annoyance overtaking the momentary awe he had felt a second before.

That bastard was running off with the female!

_I'll have to break his arms and legs once I catch up to them... _Kakashi thought darkly as he sped up a bit more so that he could at least find out where they were going so he could catch the woman unawares later on and find out who she was.


	8. Chapter 8

Kakashi trailed after the two for another ten minutes or so before dropping from the rooftops to the ground below and running haphazardly through the streets, narrowly missing some people and market stalls as he went. His mind absently reaching for Nara's mind with his own as he tried to understand why it seemed he could communicate with her without being right next to her.

He turned a corner and felt several things sliver through her mind all at once.

Irritation. Fear. Worry- She thought he was bothersome. Though she had yet to meet him in person. She was also slightly disgruntled by how quickly the situation had gone from beyond her control. And there was a deep, _deep_ dislike of that fact.

He gave a grim smile and let her feel his amusement and was startled to the point where he almost tripped over his own feet when she slammed up a mental block. Shutting him out of her mind. Leaving him feeling bereft.

It was such a startling feeling that his chest tightened painfully and he slowed to a jog then came to a stop as his mind went blank. He felt like he had on the day he had discovered his father's dead body in his childhood home.

Like he was mourning. Yet logically he knew Nara was alive and somewhere in the village, hiding from him.

_Calm down Kakashi, _He told himself as he stood in the center of the crowded street and tried to recal the basics of his Anbu training. _Center yourself- _He closed his eye and tipped his head back a little bit and took a deep calming breath. _Scent out your prey- _What did Nara smell like up close? Sure he got the impression of oranges from speaking with her telepathically, but what was her real scent? Vanilla? Lavender?

**_Pervert- _**Nara's voice sounded in his head, startling him slightly. **_I would never smell of such frivolous things. I prefer simpler scents. _**

Kakashi's lips curved up a little bit as he filed the information away in the back of his mind. That was good to know since such things were costly and he doubted he'd be able to keep them around for long since he often went into sneezing fits when he smelled certain things.

**_So...when I get the impression of oranges-_**

The mental block was slammed up again and Kakashi winched slightly as his head began to ache a little bit. Ah, so her lack of an answer either meant that she didn't want to say or that what you saw was what you got with her. His fingers twitched slightly and his smile grew.

He suddenly couldn't wait to meet her in person.

(**********************************************************************************************************************************************************)

Nara's face was flaming by the time Han set her down and looked behind them to see if the other male was still chasing them. She couldn't believe that that man had somehow gotten her to volunteer such information about herself. In fact she had almost volunteered the info, _'I like orange blossoms'_ to him.

And how embarrassing would that be once the others found out? She thought as she dropped down to a squatting position and threaded her fingers through her thick hair and pulled at it slightly.

Something she did every time she was mortified or embarrassed.

"Princess?" Han's voice penetrated her thoughts, drawing her back to their present situation. Dropping her hands, she tipped her head back and looked up at him and blinked as he held a hand out to help her up and said, "Just because the male isn't following us for the moment doesn't mean that we can let our guard down."

Slipping one of her hands into Han's, he pulled her up to stand at her full height as she realized that he was right. For all they knew the unknown male was setting a trap for them at that exact moment.


End file.
